WordCamp Melbourne 2011: Jess Genevieve Brown, Life Blogger

y mother and my father are very, very very private people and it's funny how they have a daughter who is the exact opposite.

To say that Jess Genevieve Brown's topical and timely presentation titled "Documenting Life Through Blogging" caused a big reaction amongst WordCamp Melbourne 2011 attendees is an understatement to the nth degree. Jess shocks, Jess awes and Jess educates the masses on social consciousness as she breaks new grounds by defining the "limits" of social media sharing and life blogging.

With the proliferation of Internet-based technologies that allow an individual to share every aspect of their lives from location updates, to photos to videos, to status updates, and to individual thoughts in 140 characters or less, it was with burgeoning curiosity that I find out why exactly Jess chose to share so many parts of her life online.

It's not everything. See that's the key. You can't share everything. You have to be really careful about what you're putting out there. You have to be conscious that there are readers of all sorts and you have to monitor the content that you're putting out there... It is probably one of the most important things.

On when people know so much about her:

My reaction is usually, "Cool! That's awesome!" because I know that what I've put out is safe material. I can be conscious of that because it is something that I am careful of, but yes it can be a little overwhelming for people to know so much about you, but I find that it just starts really good conversations.

On why she does it:

The Internet allows me to do this. If the Internet is making it available to me then they must want me to do it and if I can do it then how can I do it and how far can I take it and that's what interests me is that there is a free-for-all out there of what you can do. There are no parameters that are stopping you from anything... but I am interested in seeing what happens; what happens if you let go and put it all out there.

Jess' advice on sharing:

You have to understand the web space and how everything is sort of permanent now. Whatever you put out there even if you delete it, it's out there. It can be searched. It's indexed... You've got to be careful about what you put out there. You've got to know that it's permanent. You've got to know that it's available to huge audiences and [that] these audiences are usually invisible. You have no way of knowing who's reading your stuff and knowing all these things you sort of have to shape your content around that.

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People & Blogs

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